Hi Dark, That's precisely the kind of thing I'm talking about. I've read the Percy Jackson books myself, and as you say they are distressingly like Harry Potter in many ways. they are good for what they are, but I think the author could have came up with a better plot. Something a bit more unique rather than trying to imitate J. K. Rowling.
Still, I think I understand the author's motivations. I've written several sci-fi stories and I used Star Trek as a basic template. I find the entire premise of seaking out new life, new civilizations, to go were no man has gone before extremely compelling because it is a completely open ended premise. All an author needs is a deep space exploration vessel, a crew, and that author can create as many new worlds, alien lifeforms, and civilizations as he or she wants. For example, during high school I started my own spin-off series called Star Trek: Last Frontier. I created my own starship, crew, and like the original series it was on a five year mission to explore the unknown regions of space. That home grown series of stories was probably my best creative writing because I had the basic premise, technology, as well as history, but it was also based in a totally new sector of space so I had as much room as I needed to explore, to create, and add to the Star Trek cannon so to speak. Cheers! On 8/12/12, dark <[email protected]> wrote: > I also find it rather irritating myself when plot ideas or elements were > clearly borrowed from other books, even when the author did! start with an > original idea. > > Rick riordon's series of books about griek gods in the modern age for > instance, had a very unique idea, the half mortal, half devine children of > gods growing up in the modern world, with the griek gods brought into the > 21st century. I absolutely loved to see the way he used concepts like the > titans, atlas etc, for instance having Aeres the griek god of war as a Biker > > who goes around picking fights, and Nephestus god of the forge as a mechanic > > who tinkers and creates sort of semi pulp style brass robotic automatons. > > What however irritated me is that many of the actual elements of the ongoing > > story were worryingly close to harry potter.for instance, a magical summer > camp where kids with half devine parents got unusual magical lessons, the > idea that there was some sort of prophecy about the main character and one > other character which will come true in a war when he is 17, and that this > prophecy resulted from a less than reliable seeress. > > The way the final book delves heavily into the villains back story and > childhood to explain his motivations etc. > > I njoyed the series for it's fun quality and updates of griek myths,, but I > > found the actual ongoing story and progression of events utterly uninspired > > and easy to predict because of their worrying similarities to harry > potter, ---- heck, even the books titles, "percy jaxon and the lightning > thief" "Percy jaxon and the maze of time" clearly were rowling enspired. > > Beware the grue! > > Dark. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > [email protected]. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to [email protected]. > --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
